Your Custom Text Here
The second part of our favourite albums of 2024
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but please dig into this rich seam of originality and quality, and even suggest more of your own
Read more
This year’s selections include some returning veterans at the top of their game as well as some fabulous newcomers
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 1. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but rich seams of originality and quality are certainly here to be enjoyed. Peruse away …
Read more
Aphex Twin: Music From The Merch Desk (2016-2023)
Album review: A decade since his last album, Syro, electronica’s brilliant British outsider and pioneer Richard D James returns with a surprise fan-pleaser, a mass compilation release of 38 numbers played at festivals, and previously only on limited-edition vinyl sold at the merch desk of select events
Read more
Image inside a carriage of sound from E.U.E.R.P.I’s 1971 album
New album: A truly evocative, alternative experimental project of the Bulgarian composer Mirian Kolev from Tryavna, here combining music with detailed field recordings of an old Soviet train, one still running on trips along the Bulgarian railway line Gabrovo-Tsareva Livada
Read more
Angel Olsen and various: Cosmic Waves Volume 1
New album: A novel form of “compilation reimagined as a dialogue” LP by the acclaimed, serene-voiced American singer-songwriter, showcasing five different lesser-known artists on Side A, and then covering other songs by them on Side B
Read more
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp: Ventre Unique
New album: Wonderfully energetic, rhythmic stylish, inventive and witty sixth album by the 12-piece experimental Geneva collective who sing politically in French and English, their music decorated with oodles of of clever brass, violins, double-bass, marimbas, percussion and more
Read more
Warmduscher - Too Cold To Hold
New album: The mischievous mayhem post-punk band of Clams Baker Jr.), Mr. Salt Fingers Lovecraft, Quicksand, The Witherer, Three Piece aka the Worm and Bleucifer return with more songs on the seedier side of life, but also one of their most musically adventurous LPs of their five, with guest vocalists including Lianne La Havas, Janet Planet and Coucou Chlo
Read more
The Smile: Cutouts
New album: Following January’s Wall of Eyes, the trio of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke, alongside Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, return with a second LP this year, and third overall – of intricacy and invention – with dark, moody lyrics, and musical excellence
Read more
Nala Sinephro: Endlessness
New album: Mesmeric, experimental new work and the follow-up to 2021’s meditative Space 1.8 LP by the Brussels-born, London-based pedal harpist who mixes jazz and electronica and with extraordinary and unconventional results
Read more
Spirit of the Beehive: You'll Have To Lose Something
New album: Pennsylvania’s and Portugal’s Zack Schwartz, Corey Wichlin, and Rivka Ravede return with another bewildering collection of abstract, feverish dream weirdest deconstructionist experimental rock, with a collection of 12 songs that at times feel more like a hundred
Read more
Laurie Anderson: Amelia
New album: The veteran American experimental artist and musician returns with an evocative first-person narrative album charting the fateful summer 1937 six-week global flight of the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, with orchestral strings from Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno and gorgeous vocals by Britain’s Anohni
Read more
Jon Hopkins: Ritual
New album: Originally commissioned for a multi-sensory Dreamachine installation, the British electronic producer’s latest is a continuous 8-part immersive experience, slow to build, and at times challenging, but in an appropriately dark, recumbent setting, rewarding. In world of distraction, this is all about being present in the moment
Read more
Melt-Banana: 3+5
New album: Totally bananas, but enormous fun and oddly brilliant, this pithy, high-pitched and squeakily energised new release by the experimental, eccentric, eclectic Japanese noise rock band is their first over a decade, since 2013’s Fetch
Read more
Susanna: Meditations on Love
New album: The experimental Norwegian singer and composer Susanna Wallumrød’s LP is a releases a striking, eccentric, beautifully bewitching collection about relationships, concentrating not on the giddy joy of falling in love, nor breakups, but the oddness in between
Read more
Chrystabell & David Lynch - Cellophone Memories
New album: Haunting, meditative, dark, mellow, beautifully atmospheric, dream-like sounds and vocals colour this third collaborative album between the American singer and film-maker, with some final co-writing and synth work by the late Twin Peaks theme composer Angelo Badalementi
Read more
Liv.e: PAST FUTUR.e
New album: Released back in May, a wonderfully wonky short album of electronica and experimental post-punk by the Dallas artist, aka Hailee Olivia Williams, with a clever, menacing, witty delivery over a suite of strange squelchy keyboard sounds
Read more
Mabe Fratti: Sentir Que No Sables
New album: An entrancing, rather magical and unique fourth LP of experimental avant-garde electro-acoustic work by the 32-year-old Guatemalan cellist based in Mexico City who creatively distorts her instrument alongside her haunting vocals
Read more
Hiatus Kaiyote: Love Heart Cheat Code
New album: Flourishes of rippling piano, harp, guitars, woodwind and the high, dynamic voice of Nai Palm open this sunny, fluidly effervescent new LP by the brilliant Australian experimental jazz/funk prog, soul and R&B band stretching their unique sound and musicianship
Read more
LOMA: How Will I Live Without A Body?
New album: Slow, sensual, powerful, haunting, affecting, poetic and utterly gorgeous third LP by the Austin trio of Emily Cross (Cross Record), Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater) and Dan Duszynski, which includes poetic collaborations from Laurie Anderson’s AI model
Read more
Beak: >>>
New album: A surprise sudden fourth LP by the Bristol trio of drummer Geoff Barrow (Portishead), bassist Billy Fuller, and Will Young (Moon Gangs) with that familiar chevron title and distinctly dark, strange but mesmeric post-rock-krautrock thrum
Read more